14 DAY TRIAL // 343 Industries, the new studio in charge of Microsoft’s Halo franchise, shared some more details about the special Spartan Ops cooperative mode from Halo 4. According to the developer, new missions will be released after the game's launch, which should keep players interested in the experience.
Halo 4 is coming out this year and, thanks to the leaked details from the latest issue of Game Informer magazine, we have already learnt quite a lot of things about the game, from its story and technical aspects, to the multiplayer mode that sports some interesting changes.
By far, the most intriguing is the addition of the Spartan Ops co-op mode, which is extremely similar to the Spec Ops one seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 3.
These missions will allow up to four players to complete certain objectives and withstand the enemy onslaught.
New content will be released for it after the game’s launch, which will result in several months of episodic gaming for Halo 4 owners.
What’s more, new “cinematic chapters” will come out on Xbox Live, including CG movie sequences that “slowly unfold the story of the UNSC Infinity mission, chronicling the struggles the Spartans encounter along the way."
In case you forgot, the multiplayer mode in Halo 4 is now tied into the story, as the matches take place in a virtual reality simulator across the UNSC Infinity space ship, which will be encountered by Master Chief during his own story campaign.
"The Spartan Ops season is part of what you get with the package when you buy Halo 4. We want to keep players engaged and coming back week to week," 343 Industries’ Creative Director Josh Holmes explained. "We want to bridge that gap between players who really care primarily about storytelling and give them an opportunity to get their feet wet and experience multiplayer."
"By providing players the opportunity to constantly engage with new content that they can come back to, we ultimate have them moving between campaign, co-op and competitive, while weaving this high level story across it all," he told Game Informer, via CVG. "Providing that narrative arc across the whole thing really ties the experience together."
What do you think about Spartan Ops? Is it a great addition to Halo 4 or would you have wanted other types of experiences?